Feral makes a stand

21st century Australia; a world of skinny jeans, styled man-hair, ‘green’ cars and all manner of low carb, fruit flavoured and light beers. Australia is fast losing its working class, tough stereotype. Wouldn’t it be nice to know there is still places you can go that really feel like they were built and owned by man..?

Well there is. Out in the swan valley, away from the other three, surrounded by a desert of wineries, is a brewery making a stand. A brewery fighting for whats australian, and whats manly. A gravel parking lot opens up into a truly old-school looking tavern. Big, untrimmed wooden struts bound together by 30cm thick rope line the verandah. A red tin roof with exposed internal structure loom above the bar. And theres no fancy looking CO2 taps, just pure steel pump taps screwed onto an un-varnished wooden wall, the way beer was meant to be poured.

Feral Brewery, Swan Valley: the way god intended beer to be consumed.

The beers certainly do not disappoint (unless your a metrosexual of course). The Flagship ‘Hop Hog’ beer (5.8%) is a strong, aggressive tasting beer, with a lingering dry aftertaste. Its not brewed with grapes, peach, mango etc.. its brewed with pine needles, thats right, pine needles! If you can drink a pint of hop hog, you can call yourself a true man.

On the other end of the beer spectrum is ‘the runt’. Feral advertise this as an embarrassment to buy & consume (evident in its name). It is a toned down version of the glorified Hop Hog. at 4.7% it still isn’t too weak – only slightly below most mass produced beer – but by Ferals standards, its not a beer man should drink. This is no more evident than in the description of the beer:

For those who can’t hack the true Hop HOG experience … ‘The Runt’ is a more delicate, dry and lightly hopped alternative. Take a teaspoon of cement and harden up, princess!

Further telling signs of the fight for Australia and mankind are in the names. Feral doesn’t use flashy, well worded names; they use names such as the following: Feral White, Barrel Hog, Boris, Rust, Tusk, Razorback, German Mild, Cow. The list goes on to include 23 beers (one of which is mass produced – Feral White). Most of Ferals beers fall above 5.8% in the alcohol content to. Out of 23 beers 10 are above, with only 4 falling below 4.5%.

Feral brewery is a place for man to go to the test, prove their manliness, prove they haven’t falling victim of Americanisation. As one of the last stands against a metrosexual takeover of the industry Feral brewery serves up the strong, full strength beer, old school pub food and unrefined build to make a truly scary place for anyone wearing skinny leg jeans. Feral brewery surely does live up to its slogan: undomesticated yet sophisticated.